The present invention relates to a device for supporting brake shoes of a drum brake of a vehicle, in particular a commercial vehicle or an agricultural machine.
Devices of the type in question are known in the prior art. For example, there is known from DE 88 06 286 U a drum brake whose brake lining carrier is arranged on the brake carrier by means of cylindrical bearing journals in such a manner that it is swivelable in a plane. Such a supporting system, however, requires relatively high manufacture and assembly efforts using specialty tools. When the brake is actuated, the brake linings, which are fixed on the brake lining carriers, are pushed against the inside of the brake drum. As a result of the pressure the brake drum is radially enlarged, wherein this enlargement does not occur at a constant rate in the axial direction or longitudinal direction of the axis, but increases towards the open side of the brake drum, which leads to the fact that the brake shoes rest unevenly against the inner surface of the brake drum as well as that the contact pressure is accordingly unevenly distributed and, thus, that the braking power decreases. From EP 0 482 567 A1 there is known a brake shoe supporting system for vehicle drum brakes, wherein the brake lining carrier is arranged on the brake carrier via balls in such a way that it is freely swivelable in space. In order to guide the brake lining carriers along a predetermined path, said device requires a complex guiding system via a cam arrangement so that such a supporting device requires relatively great manufacture and assembly efforts using specialty tools.
Therefore, the object underlying the present invention is to provide a device for supporting brake shoes of a drum brake of a vehicle, in particular a commercial or an agricultural machine, which overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages and which, in particular, offers an easy to mount and inexpensive to manufacture support system for the brake shoes, whose path of displacement during the braking process is easily predeterminable.